Granada-ey goodness

The Alhambra
Us on arrival - me, Ashley, Alison, Mel and Jade

Granada is a lovely old city - it's a student town, but also lots of tourists, due to the wonder that is the Turkish/Christian palace, the Alhambra, which has been there for about 1000 years, and dominates the landscape. However, we were staying in a great apartment, with an awesome view of the Alhambra, quite cheap, and really close to lots of lovely little bars and cafes.

After arriving late, we had to spend a couple of hours on the internet, which luckily was free at our apartment, as Ryanair had sent an e-mail to say that Monday the 23rd, the day we were due to fly home from Granada to Stansted, the Spanish baggage handlers were going on strike, so although we had each paid 5 pounds to check in luggage, we were only allowed to take hand luggage, limited to 55cm long and 40 cm wide, and 10 kilos! As we all had large packs, the size restriction was going to be a big issue, as well as the possible weight, so we had to reassess our options, whether to change our flights, or send things home, or just hope for the best!! We didn't resolve it on the Friday night, but ended up with some very late tapas, at midnight, from a place where the chef kindly reopened the kitchen for us!!

Saturday was gorgeous weather, warm and sunny, so we went to the Alhambra, and spent all day there. There are amazing gardens, ruins, an old temple and the Palace itself, which limits the number of people, so we could only enter at 5:30pm, despite buying our tickets at 1:30pm. However, it was fine, as there was so much else to see, lots of staircases to climb to look at the amazing views of Granada! And the Palace was definitely worth the wait - beautifully intricate mosaic decoration everywhere!










Saturday night, after a lovely meal of paella, we attempted to find a nightclub for dancing, however it appears that students and young people in Granada merely drink alcohol in the various squares around town, so we ended up in a bar near our apartment, with funky music, and a Spanish hen's night, where the bride-to-be was in a belly dance costume, although she had never danced before, so she and i struck up a conversation!!

Sunday was a relaxed lazy day - in Granada, if you order a drink at a bar, they give you free tapas - this tapas I keep mentioning is basically little dishes of meat, vegies or cheese, which were originally used to cover drinks to keep them warm (I think). Most restaurants serve tapas, so you choose a few small dishes to share, and get a variety for a meal - I compare it to Spanish Yum Cha! But in Granada, they give you free tapas with drinks in bars, which is great!! So Sunday we wandered around the lovely little cobbled streets, admired the view, and then drank sangria and ate ham, cheese and bread! Sunday night was more tapas, then some mojitos, some pool playing, then home.
Me with nice view

Lovely little streets

Cute Granadian houses

Monday was our last day, and it rained! Thankfully not until we had organised our luggage - our solution to the limited luggage problem was to post our packs home! So what we saved on our flights with Ryanair (4 flights for $180 Aussie dollars), we spent in 50 Euros to send my pack and half my stuff home!! Oh well - it was funny to be in on the pavement in a main street, taping boxes together!! And I ended up buying a cheap 5 Euro bag for the stuff I needed to bring home on the plane, which is actually quite nice!
The street corner packers

We shopped a bit, then had another great 10 Euro dinner, then taxied out to the airport, to find that although some people appeared to be allowed on with large luggage, some familes were having to dump their suitcases and carry things on in plastic bags, or re-book their flights! So we made the safest decision.

Our flight to London had its own excitement, as the pilot announced 5 minutes before landing that we would actually be landing in Birmingham, because Stansted was closed!! As the plane didn't have enough fuel to fly back to Birmingham, they hired coaches to drive us back, 3 hours!! We were worried we would miss our 7:30am flight, which we had to check in for at 5:30, however we made it back in plenty of time! Then we caught our flight back to Aarhus, and thankfully arrived home on Tuesday afternoon, tired and slightly luggage-less, but having had a great trip, with lots of stories and photos!!

Now I'll be home for at least the next month, which is great, as I can acclimatise to the cold, rain and dark, and actually do some study!!

The Rain in Spain ...

... appears to be mainly in Madrid! It rained for the entire 4 days we were there, and was also quite cold, so our impressions of the city were definitely altered by that!! We arrived at 7:30 am, dumped luggage, and found that it was cold and raining!! This was a bit of a culture shock after the warmth and sun of Barcelona, and we felt like we were back in Denmark - not an auspicious start to a new city!!!

We went to the Plaza de Sol, wandered, shopped and relaxed, and then made it to our apartment at 2 to check in, to find that the lessee wasn't there, as he was still at the airport! So we found a nearby pub to dry off, and he arrived at 3, but had to clean til 5! The day just appeared to be completey derailed, so our solution was to get haircuts!! My instruction to the hairdresser, whose English wasn't very good, was 'shorter, layered, and whatever you think is best' - and this is it!! I actually really like it, it's quite fun and funky, and I can do a lot with it, so it's nice to have a change!! And it only cost 11 Euros for a cut, wash and blowdry - bargain!!



Madrid was where we met our lovely Canadian girls, Alison and Ashley, who had had their own travel adventure, travelling via Berlin to reach Madrid - their plane in Berlin was boarded by the German police, to arrest one of the passengers!! So they were very glad to be in Spain, so after settling in, we went out for a late dinner, and then off to bed. Our apartment in Madrid was unfortunately not as nice as the one in Barcelona - not only did we not all have our own keys, which meant that we had to constantly stick together in groups to be able to get back into the building, but the shower curtain did nothing to stop the deluge of water on the bathroom floor, which with 7 people and constant rain soon resembed a wading pool! It was also only a one bedroom place, so 5 of us were on mattresses on the living room floor. However, it was close to everything, and it was still nice to have our own place to relax, chat and drink!!

On Wednesday we went to Museo de Prado, which has one of Europe's finest collections of art, including lots of Greco and Roman sculpture, lots of Raphael and Valesquez etc, and lots of religious paintings - there was a lot of Jesus in our day!! We also managed to talk our way into free entry, as students studying in the EU are entitled to it, and as we study in Denmark, which is part of the EU, it all worked out well!!


Then to the Museo de Sophia, which is a modern art museum, where we found some of Picasso and Dali: The Later Years, which complemented our Barcelona art experiences nicely!! We relaxed at home for far too long, venturing out for dinner at midnight, then we wandered to random rock bar til 3am.
My lovely travelling companions - Alison, Ben, Ashley, Charlotte, Jade and me - Mel is taking the photo.

On Thursday, we slept in, apart from Charlotte, who unfortunately had to return to Aarhus for a meeting for a law moot she is participating in, and then had a relaxed tapasy type lunch, with an awesome salad - although I love tapas, it is mainly meat and cheese, so it's nice to see some fruit and vegies every now and then!! We visited the Spanish palace, and a lovely cathedral next door, and did a spot of shopping.

The Palace
More Palace
The Cathedral

Some of the buildings in Madrid are just amazing - they are banks and shopping centres, but so old and ornate!!




It's often hard to get a balance between good Spanish food and a good price, and avoid lots of touristy places, however we did find that often a 12 Euro meal would be good food, mostly Spanish, and definitely a good price - soup, bread, lamb and vegies, a glass of wine, then nice pudding for dessert, all for the equivalent of $20 Aussie dollars - a nice deal!!

Friday was our last day in Madrid, so we found some great Spanish coffee, then made our way to the bus to Granada, which showed "The Terminal" dubbed in Spanish, and then "Ladder 49", which the kind bus driver gave English subtitles for us!! (although this was a terrible movie - very American hero focused, lazy script, lazy acting - relaxing to watch on a bus, though!) We arrived around 10pm in Granada - see next post for the final Spanish instalment!!

Homage to Catalonia

This is the first instalment of my trip to Spain - a crazy 11 days of sun, art, partying and travel mishaps!!

Firstly, when we arrived at Aarhus airport to catch our plane to London (it's cheaper to go with Ryanair this way - we spend the night in Stansted, then fly out the next morning), Ashley and Alison, 2 of our Canadians, discovered that they had booked the flight for 10:30 am, rather than 10:30pm, so they had missed their flight!! All the flights were booked out, so they eventually ended up catching a bus to Berlin and meeting us in Madrid on the Tuesday, so they missed Barcelona entirely, which was a terrible shame.

However, undaunted the 5 of us (Ben, Mel and I as the Australian contingent, Jade as our Canadian representative, and Charlotte our English rose) continued to Barcelona. It is a gorgeous city, lots of old cobbled streets and old buildings, and a really great feel to it - not too touristy, and a great place to spend time - I could actually envisage living there!



Lovely little cobbled streets

On Friday morning we arrived, found our way from the aiport to the bus, from the bus to the metro, and then the metro to the apartment we had booked. 5 flights of stairs later, we found an amazing apartment awaiting us - 3 bedrooms, 17th century mosaic tiles in the living room, and situated in the centre of everything.
Our apartment - see the lovely old tiles!!

We immediately embraced the Spanish lifestyle, having a siesta before an evening snack from the local market of cheese, ham and bread.Two other Australians, Cam and Craig, had joined us, which actually worked out quite well, as we had 7 in the apartment as originally planned.
Jade, Ben and I went to a concert that night, a Canadian band called Final Fantasy, which is this guy playing the violin and singing - very funky, especially as he had someone moving pictures on an overhead projector - hard to imagine, but very cool to watch! We ended up going out for tapas at 1am - love the Spanish lifestyle!

Saturday we went to the beach! This was particularly exciting, as we had left Aarhus in rain and 16 degrees, and we found Barcelona at 27 degrees and clear blue skies!! So we sunbaked, and the weather was even warm enough to swim! We then meandered our way home via the local markets, where we were able to purchase a great lunch of fresh bread, ham, cheese and fruit for very little money, around 2 Euros each, and eat it relaxing in the apartment. Our beach holiday then embraced some culture, as we visited the Picasso museum after lunch. This museum mostly contained his early work, including sketches and ceramics, which weren't quite what we expected from Picasso, as they were quite traditionalist, however there was still some great work to be seen.

On Saturday night we ate at a Mexican restaurant, with lots of other Spanish people, and after a few drinks at home,we ventured out at 2am to happen upon a cool indie dance club, with lots of great music and lots of Spanish people, so we were able to interact nicely with the locals, not getting home til 6am!

This meant we were quite tired on Sunday, however we had to get up early to go to the Dali museum, which is in Figueres, about 2 hours by train from Barcelona, and as it was closed on Monday, and we would head to Madrid Monday night, Sunday was the day!! It was a bit hard to find the necessary train, our Spanish not being particularly good, however it was well worth the trip, as not only was the countryside beautiful, (see below) but the whole museum building was Daliesque! His surreal perspective on life was great.


The beautiful Spanish countryside


Dali's work


Dali buildings


Dali painting himself

Sunday night we relaxed, and had our first Spanish paella, which was great, until we discovered that the bread we had been given, without ordering, was charged on our bill at 7.50 Euro!!

Monday was unfortunately our last day in Barcelona, and the weather continued warm and lovely. We visited the Arc de Triomf (it appears that Spain has one too!!), and stopped for some lovely thick hot chocolate.
The Arc
We then walked through the town on the 'Gaudi walk', which is basically the main street with lots of buildings which have been designed by Gaudi, an architect/artist from the 19th century who designed very imaginative buildings.


This walk culminated in the Sagrada Familia, which is an unfinished cathedral that dominates the Barcelona landscape, and is a sight to see, with lots of animals and decoration that looks like dripping wax.




We then visited the Park Guelli, which again had lots of Gaudi buildings, as well as great views and an outdoor escalator!!


The lovely view of Barcelona
The outdoor escalator
Me outside a Gaudi building
I want to live in one of these gingerbread houses!!

Barcelona is in the Catalan district of Spain, and they actually speak Catalan, which is a dialect similar to Spanish. On Monday night, we found ourselves in a Catalan restaurant devoted to Harrison Ford, pictures on the walls and everything, with only a Catalan menu, so we just had to guess what we were ordering! It all turned out very nicely, however, and we had a lovely meal!

We then hopped onto the overnight bus for Madrid, which is in the next instalment :-)

The Life of an Exchange Student

It's hard, really - trying to fit study in between parties, dinners and general merriment!

On Friday night my dorm had what is known as a 'Tour de Chambre'. As I live with 12 people, this is a tradition where everyone creates a different drink in their room, with or without a theme, and then all of us go from room to room, together, drinking in each other's rooms. It's a lot of fun, and a great way to get to know your flatmates!! As 10 out of my 11 other flamates are Danish, it is also a good way to break down the language barrier, as alcohol creates fluency in any language!

So we had a big common dinner beforehand (one of my flatmates is a trainee chef, so she created a lovely chicken dish!), and then drew room numbers out of a bowl to determine in which order we travelled our dorm. We then spent the next 8 hours drinking, dancing, chatting and generally partying! We ended up at 2am in the sauna that our complex has, as one of the former flatmates had also joined us, and as he no longer had a room, he had his drink in the sauna!! Irish coffee in a hot place, not necessarily a good idea!!But it was lots of fun, and will certainly be a memory for me from this exchange - 12 drunk Danes in their underwear in a sauna, throwing water on each other and laughing!



We made it to my room around 2:30am, which I had decorated to look like Sex and the City - my drink was a Cosmopolitan. I'm very proud of my cityscape on my wall - see below!!



So, after a 5:30am sleep time on Saturday, I headed out again on Saturday night, to a communal Italian dinner put on at another college - 90 people, so it was crazy, but quite fun!! And the food was quite good - tiramisu is always at its best when cooked by Italians!

And on Sunday, we had Canadian thanksgiving (which is a month earlier than the American version), but still involves the same amount of eating and drinking! We had turkey, beef, chicken, potatoes, carrots, peas, beans, casserole, apple salad and at least 3 types of dessert - it was great!! For 25 people, also, which made it a very large but enjoyable affair.

So after some more classes this week, I am off to Spain on Thursday night! We will spend 4 days in Barcelona, 4 days in Madrid, and 3 days in Granada, so we should get a variety of lovely Spanish experiences! There are 7 of us in our usual Commonwealth travelling party (Aussies, Canadians and English), so we have even been able to get apartments in each city, which are the same price as hostels, but give us much more freedom for meals, bags and the like!!

I'll try and blog while I'm away, but probably won't be able to put up photos til my return :-)